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Welcome back to term 1. We hope you all had an enjoyable break and have returned to school feeling fresh and ready to implement some new ideas. This year we hope to inspire you with some great new ideas in our professional learning sessions. Our first session kicks off on Thursday 21st February at 3.45pm at the Naturaliste Marine Discovery Centre.

In this session we’ll be covering the excursion activity Science of Sampling. In this activity, students learn about a range of sampling techniques used by Department of Fisheries research scientists to collect information about various fisheries in Western Australia.

Follow this activity up in the classroom with the Marine WATERs Lesson Plans: How Many Fish in the Sea? and Manage a Fishery. Learn how managing a jaffafish fishery relates to managing fisheries in the real world.

As always, light refreshments will be served at 3.45pm and hard copy resources will be provided on the day also.

To register your interest in this professional learning session, click here.

To find out about our future planned sessions this year, click here.

If you’re finding the day or time prohibitive to attending, remember you can pull together a group of 10 or more teachers and we will come to your school and complete a professional learning session with you, and it’s still free! To organise a Professional Learning session at your school, send us an email.

It’s that awkward time of the year, the kids are over Christmas shopping, they’re bored, and Christmas is another 4 days away!

If you’re planning a holiday fishing trip, or just planning to send the kids to the beach to go fishing in January, keep them occupied this weekend by getting them to practice their knot tying.

In the background information of the Marine WATERs Lesson Plan: Hook, Line and Sinker, there are step by step instructions for tying a locked half blood knot and a uni knot. To save your furniture (and your kids fingers) from hooks, give them a paperclip to practice with to being with.

Download the Get Hooked on Fishing brochure and the kids can read up on making up rigs to target specific species including whiting, tailor, skippy, herring and Australian salmon.

We wish you all the best for the festive season, and enjoy the fishing (sustainably) this holiday period.

The common blowfish is often regarded as a nuisance to fishers, gobbling bait before any other species can get near it. However, these fish are native to Western Australia (and therefore are not pests) and play an important role in keeping our marine ecosystems clean by eating waste bait and berley.

Common blowfish are found along the lower west coast of WA but also have a northern relative. The northwest blowfish inhabits northern Australian waters but is also occasionally seen off the lower west coast as far south as Cape Naturaliste. Northwest blowfish are significantly larger than the common blowfish, reaching a maximum of 88 cm in length, compared to the common blowfish at 22 cm.

Both species of blowfish contain a highly lethal toxin so they are not generally targeted by fishers– however they still have a bag limit. Visit the Department of Fisheries website to find out more about bag and size limits in your area. To learn more about other ways we manage recreational fisheries in Western Australia, see the Marine WATERs lesson plan: Fishing for the Future.

Fishers are reminded not to leave blowfish to die on beaches and jetties as pets have died from eating them.

Want to know more about this species or of the many other species found in Western Australia? See our extensive range of fact sheets.